While both Archana and Meera Jasmine are superior actors than Dhanush, we felt that Archana tended to go overboard at times in Parattai Engira Azhagu Sundaram, particularly in the second half.

Much of the violence in Parattai Engira Azhagu Sundaram is meaningless.

Director Suresh Krissna misses no opportunity in having any of the characters in Parattai Engira Azhagu Sundaram pick up the sickle, the weapon of choice in Tamil movies.

Unlike in Hollywood films like Martin Scorsese's recent movie Departed or that old gangster film Scarface, violence in Tamil movies is completely gratuituous. Most of the time, there is no artistic logic or rationale behind all the blood and gore in Tamil movie.

Azhagu Sundaram comes to Chennai from his small village in Tirunelveli district after his father's death. The poor lad's goal is to make enough money to get his mother a set of gold bangles. In the big city, Azhagu Sundaram is one day caught in the crossfire of vicious gang-warfare between two notorious thugs.

Azhagu Sundaram quickly earns a reputation as the deadliest of rowdies in the city after he kills the leader of one of the gangs.

Meera Jasmine plays the role of Shweta, a journalism student. But her character is poorly developed.

Another talented actor Nasser is wasted in an insignificant role as Kaderbhai, the owner of a small tea shop where Azhagu Sundaram finds work.

The music in Parattai Engira Azhagu Sundaram is nothing to write home about. Choreographed well, the dance-song Engeda Azaguhdhan featuring Meera Jasmine and Dhanush was perhaps the best of the lot.

Unlike that delightful movie Mozhi, the dialogs in Parattai Engira Azhagu Sundaram are amateurish and wholly lacking in charm.

Parattai Engira Azhagu Sundaram's other saving grace is that it's not as bad as two other recent Tamil movies - Mayakannadi and Unnale Unnale. But that's not saying much when most Tamil movies are so eggregiously bad as to be unwatchable.